Fitness marketing is an absolute necessity when it comes to getting the name of a particular business into the public eye. A personal trainer or fitness complex will inevitably have to pay for advertising at some point, but that is not a pressing concern for an upstart fitness complex. When starting out with a fitness business, just like any other, there are avenues to follow which do not lead to an empty pocket. That is to say, free and cheap methods of advertising are available to fitness businesses. Whether it is a gym with partner personal trainers, or a new fitness tape or exercise regimen, there is a particular niche with the internet to help publicize it.
Fitness Marketing Tactics
The first option of fitness marketing is the creation of a blog. Anyone can create a blog. There are websites specifically created to help users create a blog that can achieve a high amount of hits. It is unnecessary (at least at first) to waste money on a tech head to do the work on a blog that can be easily created and posted online. All that is necessary are regular posts by those involved with whatever the fitness solution chronicled is. The blog could come from multiple personal trainers at a particular gym or maybe only the head of the gym. The only necessary part is regular posting. If there aren’t regular postings on the blog, people will forget about it. As the gym gains more steam it may be beneficial to pepper in some search engine optimization keywords to grab even more attention.
Fitness Marketing Referrals
Another beneficial fitness marketing ploy is allowing clients to bring friends or family once a month for a free session. The companion may just be bit by the exercising bug and sign up for their own membership. This doesn’t really hurt anything with regards to the gym since the personal trainers would be working out at this time anyway. Add this to the fact that the personal trainer can be more encouraging to the potential member to get them to sign up.
Fitness Marketing Partnerships
One of the best fitness marketing ideas is a partnership between other businesses dealing with the health and well-being of clients. If a gym tries to broaden the focus it may lose the original ideals of the gym, to focus on exercise and fitness. However, if the gym partners up with local massage therapists or chiropractors in what could be called a mutual referral relationship, both businesses can prosper. Creating an alliance with multiple businesses in the same area is a good idea to keep clients circulating through the different businesses and to keep the money circulating through the area as well. A referral network exceeds the efficiency of advertising. Where in advertising a business may rake in 20% maximum of what their advertising costs, with cross referrals a gym spends nothing for advertising (unless it offers coupons for customers who come from other health care businesses). The fitness gym then reaps almost pure profit from these referrals.
Fitness Marketing and Craig’s List
The internet is the greatest tool for advertising ever. Site exist like Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and more that allow businesses to offer opportunities to up and coming businesses. Depending on the service businesses can even sell a product online and set up a PayPal account to collect transactions. If the business deals strictly with an in gym service, Craigslist is one of the many solutions to the problem of advertising. Craigslist offers free advertising when it comes to anything fitness related. An advertisement can be posted with a detailed description of the fitness gym and inviting customers to attend. Another option can be offering coupons for Craigslist customers only. This is especially helpful if the gym is located in a major metropolitan area where thousands of people surf Craigslist a day. Setting up a Craigslist account is easy and only requires a phone number and email address.
Fitness Marketing And Social Media
Facebook is currently the champion of free fitness marketing. Facebook can connect a gym with thousands of people around the area, offer discounts and engage in partnerships with local businesses all in one easy to create page. Clients who are on Facebook can like a gym or a personal trainer and follow them as they talk about various facets of being a fitness gym or a personal trainer. Notes can be posted very similarly to the blog posts mentioned earlier. This allows all clients and potential clients to find out about special events, such as “bring your friends to work out” events.
Facebook can be hooked into Twitter where a gym can post on the Facebook wall and have it transfer to the Twitter wall and vice versa. Having a way where each personal trainer in a gym can spread the work load of social networking (which can seem like a full time job sometimes). Each personal trainer can use the Facebook to post their own individual offers if they are allowed to make them or the gym itself can offer a business wide coupon for a discount or free session. The options are virtually limitless when it comes to what can be offered through Facebook and Twitter.
LinkedIn is a bit different for fitness marketing. LinkedIn should represent a gym’s legitimate business face. All of the employees of the gym who have LinkedIn as well should be linked to this profile page. This shows that a gym has a legitimate team working and supporting customers. Many potential higher spending clients will take a fitness establishment more seriously if they know there is a LinkedIn profile. The profile works about the same way as a Facebook profile. You can message other businesses and forge your alliances without worry about paying for messages or advertising.
A business has a lot of options when it comes to their marketing tactics. A business should keep in mind never to rely too heavily on one method of free advertising. They are all great and should be used in conjunction with one another. When the free advertising becomes too harrowing you may want to enlist the help of someone knowledgeable in social networking to take care of the blogging aspects, but in the beginning stages, your fitness marketing can be all your own.
Sam Bakhtiar is recognized as one of the top personal trainer marketing experts and in the trenches Fitness Marketing strategist. He is not a so called “guru” he actually owns and operates successful fitness businesses throughout the U.S.